The Home Of Basketball in The Cayman Islands
The Home Of Basketball in The Cayman Islands
the 2023 Natwest Island Games experience provided some great news for basketball. It is the first time in 18 years that both Men’s and Women’s teams have brought home medals for basketball in the Natwest Island Games.
Our men’s team didn’t get to 3-peat, but still were able to appear on the podium with a bronze medal while our women have had their best performance in over a decade, placing 2nd overall and bringing home a silver medal.
We are proud of our Men and Women!
Our National Men and Women’s teams are off to Guernsey for the 2023 NatWest Island Games.
The men would defend their back to back Championship titles. Gold in Gotland 2017 and Gold in Gibraltar 2019.
Our women placed 5th in 2019 and 6th in 2017.
The Men and women will play their first games this Sunday. The men will face Menorca at 9am Guernsey time or 3am Cayman time and the women will take on Jersey at 11:30am Guernsey time or 5:30am Cayman time.
NATIONAL MEN’S TEAM: L-R Coach Borislav Djordjic, Jake Whittaker, Bryan Ebanks, Philip Webb, Juawon Ebanks, Shaad O’Garro, Head Coach Duran Whittaker, Samuel O’Garro, Justin Collins, Justin Golob, Kwei General, Deandre Simpson, Davion Cotterell.
NATIONAL WOMEN’S TEAM: L-R Coach Victor O’Garro, Head Physio – Taylor Reid, Head Coach Wendy Manzanares, Chloe Powery-Doxey, Leandrea Watson, Jamie Rankin, Courtisha Ebanks, Kailan O’Connor, Zandie Smith, Neandra Forbes-Morgan, Team Manager Angela O’Garro, Victoria Gray, Vania Cornwall, Hannah Parchment, Coach Cory McGee, Annika Moore
The Cayman Islands Basketball Association has teamed up with Bringing Back the Glory Tournaments to provide opportunities for their youth teams in Cayman and Port Arthur Texas to compete.
Port Arthur and the Cayman Islands have a deeper connection than many people realize. Many decades ago, many of the seafarers settled in Port Arthur. As the Caymanian population grew there, an exchange began with friendly competitions of all sorts. Barefoot Man would even travel there at least once per year and have an event Called “Cayman Nights”.
With the hopes of re-kindling this relationship, Mrs. Wanda Bodden – CEO and Tournament Director for BBTG reached out to the then Director of Sports, Collin Anglin and President of CIBA Richard Parchment to make this vision a reality back in 2019.
The result: Cayman hosted Port Arthur in the Cayman Basketball Festival in 2019 which also included Bermuda along with Cayman and a team from Port Arthur in the Under 17 Boys and Girls Division.
Although the program took a brief hiatus due to Covid, it has now been brought back and both parties are excited! Anglin is now the President of the CI Basketball Association, and the new executive fully supports the continuation of this collaboration.
Cayman’s National Under 15 boys and Girls teams will travel to Port Arthur to Compete in the “Feel the Heat – Reloaded” Tournament June 15-17, hosted by BBTG and then in July 11-13th Port Arthur will travel to Cayman to take part in the Cayman Basketball Festival being hosted by CIBA. The tournament in Cayman will feature Cayman’s U-17 Boys and Girls teams. This is all aimed at giving our athletes more exposure to international competition as Cayman Prepares to take part in upcoming FIBA tournaments.
L-R: Omari Corbin -1st Vice President of CIBA, Victor O’Garro – CIBA Technical Director, Wanda Bodden – CEO and Tournament Director of Bringing Back the Glory Tournaments, Collin Anglin – President of CIBA
He was arguably the best rebounder the Cayman Islands has ever seen, one of the country’s top defenders and possibly one of the greatest shot blockers in Cayman’s history.
Cayman Basketball built its foundation around this 6’3 versatile player who represented the three island nation at the very first NatWest Island Games and came away with a silver medal.
Got your attention? Good!
Now let’s read about 41 year old Cory Thompson who has paved the way for several young Cayman basketball players to take their talents overseas.
Ireland:
Cory Thompson signed his first professional contract in the Super league with a team called Neptune from Cork. While staying in Ireland for a few months which happened to be the same time as pre-season tryouts, Thompson was invited to train with the team for a few months and played the first few games with the them before returning to study at Hillsbourough County in Tampa, Florida.
Tampa:
In Tampa, this power forward and center played in a few local leagues and won 3 championships in which he was selected to play in the NBA Hoop It Up 3on3 challenge where he won the Men’s 1st Division B for the entire tournament.
United Kingdom:
In 1999 Thompson and his Cayman teammate Erdmon McCoy were offered contracts for 2 different teams. They both travelled to Cardiff to tryout with the Clippers and Coventry Tigers which they both got offered contracts.
According to Thompson, both he and McCoy returned home to Cayman to decide on which contract to take but unfortunately McCoy had broken his instep in a pre-season game where they both competed before heading back home….This prevented McCoy’s chance at the pro leagues. Thompson then however, decided not to return as well but to continue his studies in Florida.
After finishing College, Thompson returned to the UK and signed with the Southampton Trial Blazers in the 4th national league. His very first professional team. That season, Thompson and the Blazers went 15-0 to win the Southern Division.
A few seasons after, Thompson went onto play for Chichester Thunder where he also won the 4th Southern Division that year. Thompson was the 2nd top scorer on the team averaging a double in every game with 20+ points.
France:
Later on Thompson and most of his teammates from the Chichester squad joined the 1st division Worthing Thunder where they placed 2nd in the national division that year.
Thompson was also selected 3 years in a row to play in the Quartier Quest, a tournament held in Northern France which is the home town of the NBA’s Nicolas Batum of the Charlotte Hornets.
Thompson said, “he was fortunate to meet and play alongside Batum once as the Hornets did not make the NBA playoffs that year so Batum returned to France for competition.”
Members of the team consisted of top BBL players, England and Nigerian national team players.
However, Thompson said, “what was most important for me during that time playing and travelling around the UK was that I found time to obtain my Bacholer and Masters degrees in Communication Design along with my level 1 and 2 City and Guilds certificate in Web design.” He said he also became a level 1 coach and began coaching kids in a few camps in the UK and 1 in Norway.”
Finland:
When Thompson migrated to Finland he found a new passion in coaching but he also played in the men 2nd division. The first year he was the assistant coach for the U16 Boys 1st division. Thompson said the head coach allowed him to coach and change up his system because he wanted to mentor him to become the head coach for Masu Basket….in which he did.
This same year Masu won the U16 1st division where Thompson also coached the team in an invitational tournament held in Finland where they won a gold medal with the team also setting a tournament record by remaining undefeated throughout the season.
That year, Thompson played and coached for the same basketball club. He played 3 seasons and coached for 4 seasons.
Clubs in Finland are a big deal with teams starting as young as U10 straight to men’s professional level league with the biggest club in Finland having over 1500 players.
Officiating:
Thompson also dabbled in Officiating throughout his extended career. He stepped away from coaching for a while to become a professional referee. Thompson currently holds a level 1 certificate which allows him to referee in the Women’s 1st division which is televised; Men 2nd division and all national and U19 league games.
Thompson said, “he has enjoyed refereeing so far because it has allowed him to travel all over Europe and officiate various tournaments in places such as Sweden, Hungry, Spain and Norway.
After Thompson stopped playing in the men’s 2nd division he then transferred to another club NMKY to play in a higher league in the Men’s 35 Senior National league where he and his team finished 5th the very first season.
Next season, Thompson will be playing in the Senior league once again and also tournaments around Finland. The winners of the Senior national league will go on to represent Finland in the FIMBA world championship.
Local Teams:
Thompson has shared his talents with several local teams in the Men’s National league throughout the years. Most notably
The Island Pharmacy Huskies where he has won a championship with the Huskies being the first team in Cayman to go through the entire season undefeated. Thompson also represented local teams CNB; Coconut Car Rental (championship); Harlem Bulls; Police (championship)
DHL Wolverines (championship) and Shaolin Warriors.
Islands Games:
The 6’3 center also represented the Cayman Islands at 4 NatWest Island Games in Gotland, Sweeden where Cayman won Silver; Guernsey where Cayman won Silver once again; Aland and Isle of Wight.
Caricom/CBC Games:
Thompson also led the Cayman Islands to 5th place out of 13 Caribbean countries in the 1999 Junior Caricom Basketball tournament held in Jamaica.
RBMF:
Thompson also founded the Rodney Bodden Memorial Foundation in 2006 in which he organizes a weekend of fun basketball competition in the Cayman Islands in honour of his former National teammate who passed away in 1998. It started as a one day 3 on 3 tournament and evolved into a 3 day weekend which now includes an all star night and 3 point shootout.
Thompson now resides in Finland where he continues to play and give back to the sport he loves ever so passionately.
Federal International Basketball Association (FIBA) General Secretary Andreas Zagklis with CIBA President Mr. Richard Parchment and Technical Director Coach Victor Voot O’Garro at the CBC General Assembly in Dominica.
The Cayman Islands U-18 team made history by recording not only their first win in the festival, but also their first win for international youth tournaments at Grand Cayman’s amazing facility.
Cayman defeated Bermuda 85-49 in the opener, due to suffocating full court defensive pressure. Cayman set the tone of the game with their in-your-face defense; forcing Bermuda to commit 34 turnovers. Both teams were evenly matched in rebounds and free throw percentage; Cayman shot 45% from the field and 25% from 3 point range; led by the hot shooting of Brad Lansdell who went 5 of 9 from behind the arc, and Kai Robinson who was 3 of 7 from 3 point range. Bermuda was only able to shoot 12.5% from behind the arc.
Cayman was led by Kai Robinson, who finished with 23 points, 4 assists and 3 steals, while Joshua O’Garro posted the best overall game with an impressive 22 points, 8 rebounds, 5 steals, 4 assists and 2 blocks. Brad Lansdell also made a massive impact with his 19 points, 8 steals, 4 rebounds and 3 assists. Tareaque Simpson was solid, pouring in 10 points to go along with his 8 rebounds, 4 steals and 3 assists.
For Bermuda: Jorel Smith led with 24 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocks. While teammate Christian Liyanage added 8 points and 7 rebounds.
Cayman’s National Men’s team have repeated GOLD at the Natwest Island Games after defeating powerhouse Sareema in the Championship match.
This mean’s that the men’s program has medaled 6 out of the total ten appearances at the Islands games, racking up 4 silver and now 2 straight Gold Medals. What has been the difference? College Experience!
The Current Cayman national Men’s team comprise of 12 players: 11 of which have played either in College and/or high school in the United States and 1 player that has played professionally in Germany, as opposed to previous silver medal teams that had 3-5 players with such experience. This exposure has no doubt better equipped the team to compete at higher levels. Cayman’s focus this year was defensive domination; Cayman played all of their opponents a full-court man-to-man defense. Cayman’s defense was intense, aggressive and suffocating, resulting in them winning only one game of their 5 by less than 20 points.
Cayman was strong off the bench as well, young players like Arin Taylor, Juawon Ebanks, Joshua O’Garro and Kai Robinson all came in and also put on stellar performances. Overall it was a fantastic performance by the men’s team who will now focus their attention on the next Caribbean Championships tournament and an invitational tournament next Easter.
Head Coach Ed Pellot-Rosa and assistant Coach Duran Whittaker did a fantastic job preparing the team to defend their title.
The Cayman Team: Deandre Simpson, Kwei General, Shaad O’Garro, Arin Taylor, Samuel O’Garro, Jake Whittaker, Philip Webb, Davion Cotterell, Kai Robinson, Joshua O’Garro, Tikko Moore, Juawon Ebanks.
The defending Island Games Champions are sending message loud and clear to their opponents, they mean business! Thus far, Cayman has steamrolled their competition, with their latest win over Aland being 154-13. But the champs will face much stiffer competition as they move into the semi-final round agains the like of teams like Menorca and Gibraltar.
Come what may, Cayman is ready!
